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Vanity Fair
Cover Story
Madonnarama!
 By Rich Cohen May 2008 Photographs by Steven Meisel.
 
 The world is a series of rooms, which are arranged like concentric circles, or rooms withinrooms, joined by courtyards and antechambers, and in the room at the center of all thoserooms Madonna sits alone, in a white dress, dreaming of Africa. To reach her, you must wait for a sign. When it comes, if you are pure of heart, you begin tomove toward Madonna, and move fast. One moment you are in Connecticut, wondering if itwill snow, the next moment you are swept up by a force greater than yourself. You’re in a caron the highway, flashing past sleepy towns, moving closer and closer to the center, which youapproach deftly and humbly, in the manner of a pilgrim. Like a pilgrim, you set off before firstlight. Like a pilgrim, you remove your shoes—to pass through security at the airport. Like apilgrim, you read and reread sacred texts: profiles and reviews, the first published in the early1980s; the most recent published just a second ago, which constitute a kind of record, thegood news, the Gospel of Madonna. Taken together, these chronicle the career of Madonna, each different, but each telling thesame story, which is so established and archetypal it verges on folklore: the girl fromsuburban Detroit, which can stand for anywhere other than here; the early years in Eden,memories of which Madonna describes as “grainy and beautiful,” when her mother was youngand alive; then tragedy, the wound that never heals, the death of her mother from breastcancer when Madonna was six; empty days plagued by tormented dreams. “You’re aware of asense of loss, and feel a sense of abandonment,” she told me. “Children always think they didsomething wrong when their parents disappear.” Then her father’s second marriage, thestepmother, the drudgery, because she was the oldest girl in a house filled with eight childrenand so was pressed into adult service, cleaning and wiping and changing, when she was still achild herself; secrets and desires, her life before the mirror, which has followed hereverywhere; high school, where she was beautiful, but punchy and strange. “I didn’t fit intothe popular group,” she said. “I wasn’t a hippie or a stoner, so I ended up being the weirdo. Iwas interested in classical ballet and music, and the kids were quite mean if you weredifferent. I was one of those people that people were mean to. When that happened, insteadof being a doormat, I decided to emphasize my differences. I didn’t shave my legs. I had hairgrowing under my arms. I refused to wear makeup, or fit the ideal of what a conventionallypretty girl would look like. So of course I was tortured even more, and that further validatedmy superiority, and helped me to survive and say, ‘I’m getting out of here, and everyone is aheathen in this school—you don’t even know who Mahler is!’ ” She found refuge in danceclass and went on to the University of Michigan to study dance, but for just a year, becausethen she was gone to New York.Here is my favorite quote—it’s an editor at Billboard talking to Jay Cocks in 1985 for Time:
“Cyndi Lauper will be around a long time. Madonna will be out of the business insix months.”
I felt the presence of Madonna as soon as I landed at LAX. <…> I was rushed to Century Cityfrom the airport, to the towering new office building of CAA, the talent agency that representsMadonna, and seated in an empty screening room, which was spooky in the same way anempty church is spooky. The lights went down, and for 90 minutes I watched a documentaryMadonna has written and produced, I Am Because We Are. The movie sings of Malawi, alandlocked little nation in sub-Saharan Africa, ravaged by aids, filled with orphans.After the movie, I was brought to the office of Madonna’s manager, where I sat in a boardroomand listened to Madonna’s new record (Hard Candy) on an iPod. It was a long day. Themorning flight, the articles, the movie, the record, then the interview. It was like beingbrainwashed. Like being dropped in a vat of Madonna. But it’s how they wanted it—how I waspurified and prepared. Like they do in the cults. Make sure the mark is softened before he sits
 
with the eminence. As Madonna herself told me, “I just wanted you to know where my head isat.”I took notes as I listened to
Hard Candy 
. There are a dozen songs. Now and then, I took abreak. Now and then, my mind drifted. Now and then, Liz Rosenberg, Madonna’s longtimepublicist, who wore heavy glasses with dark frames, came in to see how I was doing. Later,when I looked over my notes, I found just a few bits worth preserving:•Madonna is turning 50 in August.•Madonna made her fortune selling sex—what will she sell when the thought of sex withMadonna seems like a fetish?•What if there were just the songs—no videos, no movies, no concerts. How would we judgeMadonna?•How closely does the movie career of Madonna parallel the movie career of Elvis? (With thefirst film being the only one that matters.)•First you sit alone in a screening room, watching Madonna among Africans, then you sit alonein a boardroom, hearing Madonna with rappers.•To reach Madonna, you must pass through many rooms.•The lyrics to her song “Candy Shop”.I interviewed Madonna for almost two hours. Liz Rosenberg took me in. We went down anondescript hall, made two turns, went through a door, and here, finally, was the room at thecenter of the maze. Madonna sat bolt upright on a leather couch. She wore a white dress—atleast, that’s what I think she was wearing. She was stunningly beautiful. I mean, you’ve seenthis person only on TV or in movies, in two dimensions, now here she is.Madonna’s hair was blond and pulled back from her face, which was porcelain and perfect inthe way of Grace Kelly in Rear Window, when she moves in to kiss Jimmy Stewart, who issweaty. Something clean in a dirty world. I turned on my tape recorder.Madonna spoke of Africa: “If you’ve got one iota of compassion, you can’t ignore what’s goingon. You have to figure out a way to be a part of the solution.”Madonna spoke of New York, how it’s changed: “It’s not the exciting place it used to be. It stillhas great energy; I still put my finger in the socket. But it doesn’t feel alive, cracking with thatsynergy between the art world and music world and fashion world that was happening in the80s. A lot of people died.”She spoke of the music business: “Well, there’s one thing you can’t download and that’s a liveperformance. And I know how to put on a show, and enjoy performing, and I’ll always havethat.”She spoke of the long career: “Honestly, it’s not something I sit around ruminating about. Whois my role model and how long can I keep this going? I just move around and do differentthings and come back to music, try making films and come back to music, write children’sbooks and come back to music.”She spoke of Guy Ritchie: “We make different kinds of movies. I don’t have the technicalknowledge he has. He’s got a vision, and his films are very testosterone-fueled. Mine are
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